Elderly could pay £12,000 for long-term care

ELDERLY people in England and Wales could soon choose to pay a one-off £12,000 charge in return for free long-term care in old age.

CHARGE The elderly could be hit by high fees CHARGE: The elderly could be hit by high fees

It is understood a forthcoming Government green paper will propose the plans at the end of this month in a bid to cope with the increasing number of older people needing residential care.

For those who opt in, the fee would either be taken from their estates when they died or paid upon retirement, in what is dubbed an “inheritance levy”.

The UK’s elderly population is steadily growing and currently one-in-five people needs long-term care in their older years.

State-funded residential places are in huge demand and anyone with savings of over £22,250 must pay nursing home fees themselves. Critics have long claimed that elderly people are subjected to a “postcode lottery” with some areas offering more services and care home places than ­others.

Nursing homes cost an average of around £600 a week, or £31,200 annually, but fees vary hugely between different areas. In some Home Counties elderly people are facing nursing home bills of £43,470 a year.

Many have been forced to take drastic action, with some selling their homes to meet the bills.

The new plans could radically overhaul the system in which there have also been cases of children selling their properties to fund their parents’ care fees.

The Daily Express Respect For The Elderly crusade has called on the Government to make it easier for vulnerable pensioners to get the care they need without being forced to sell their homes.

Focus groups have found that up to 80 per cent of Britons would choose to pay the levy of between £10,000 to £12,000 to secure their needs in old age and to make sure that they do not have to lose their homes or other assets.

It has been estimated by charity Counsel and Care that the inheritance tax levy could raise up to £2.9billion, which could then be used to spread the cost of elderly care. Last year it conducted a study in which it found that the biggest concern for pensioners was how to pay for a place. Yesterday its chief executive Stephen Burke welcomed the possibility of a levy.

He said: “It would be a social insurance scheme and a way of people sharing the risk and the cost of care. We are facing a massive funding shortfall at the moment.

“A lot of people think that the current system is unfair and inconsistent. This idea would allow for people to be clear about what they have to pay for and what they would get and we would welcome such a proposal.”

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